Duncan Doings

Although chow time at Duncan Dining Hall was as structured an environment as almost anything else in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M, there were many events that broke the routine and provided lots of memories.

Everyone complained about the food, but there were situations, some rumored, some I experienced, that stood out. Remember, in our day, Duncan served meals family-style (it's now cafeteria-style). That means that waiters brought food to the tables in serving dishes appropriate for the eight cadets who sat there. In the rumor category were three such food deliveries: 1) one night when the entrée was steak, the fourth or fifth item from the top of the steaks stacked on the platter was a squirrel, fur and all, pressed flat and steam-cooked; 2) one lunch when the dessert was chocolate cream pie, when the pie was cut at the table, it was found that, under the meringue, the pie was half chocolate, and the other half was left-over spinach; and 3) one cadet found a wad of used chewing tobacco submerged in the bowl of ranch-style beans.

In the "I experienced it" category was food poisoning. The entrée on that Sunday noon was roast beef, and the "rainbow sheen" on its surface that day was especially evident. But we ate it anyway. After an afternoon at a house in College Station, sitting out in the sun and drinking beer, I felt like my stomach was on fire. When the usual two or three heaves didn't solve the problem, some of my buds carried me to the Quack Shack, where I was admitted in severe abdominal distress. I just couldn't quit throwing up, and my stomach continued to feel like I had ingested a live coal. In my stupor, I noticed a large number of cadets occupying the beds in the ward. I asked one nurse what had been in the hypo that I had been given, and was told, quietly, that it was something to counteract food poisoning. By morning, we were all well enough to go back to our holes, and by afternoon, back to classes. Oddly enough, that day's Battalion reported a mass outbreak of "stomach flu" in the quad.

Among the "doings" in Duncan was torching an upper classman's bib. While fish wore their napkins tucked into their shirt collars at chow, juniors placed their paper napkins in their laps. At the direction of another junior, a fish crawled under the table (hopefully undetected), and, using his fish matches, lit the napkin. Correctly done, the unsuspecting junior noticed a flame coming from his crotch, and climbed backwards over his chair.

Another such detail involved buttering the ears of another unsuspecting white belt. A junior or senior would send a fish to sneak up on someone, and to slap a pat of butter into each of the target's ears. When we were sergebutts and zips, our favorite target was Eddurds, first because you could get an entire butter pat in each of his ears, and second because he reacted so indignantly and violently.

Speaking of pats of butter, another diversion included attempts to get them to stick to the ceiling by launching them with spoons. This was mostly a lunch or weekend activity, since seating was random. At breakfast and supper on weekdays there was assigned seating, and it would be obvious who had done the deed.

The sergebutts who anchored my table when I was a fish, Barnes and Jackson, instituted two regular events. First, when we got to the table for breakfast, the fish were directed to sing, "Good morning to you; Good morning to you; We're all in our places with bright shining faces; Oh this is the way to start a new day; Aaaah-men." Second we were to fart-off the juniors at the next table, identical twins from Titty Ten named Bill and Bob Rick. They both had speech impediments, so when you whipped out to them, if you didn't scope out their nametags, you'd swear they said their names were "Wick". Sometimes we were directed to say, "Howdy Mister Wick, Sir!" (twice.) Other times we were told to say, "Howdy Billy-Bob!"

Of course there were the occasional food fights, although they were strictly prohibited, and anyone caught participating was subject to Corps discipline. Again, they mostly occurred at lunch and on weekends, when it was harder to tell who had been sitting where. As befits a military organization, Duncan food fights often took on the characteristics of a pitched battle, with upended tables used as parapets, and feints, tactics, and resupply logistics that wouldn't be unfamiliar in war colleges.

One other white-belt detail that got the attention of the entire dining hall was The Flight of The Buzzard. Two fish got up on a table, and one of them cried out in the loudest possible voice, "For your dining entertainment, we present The Flight (pause) of The Buzzard!" The other fish would then begin imitating a buzzard, flapping his "wings", and searching for something dead to attack. They both descended from the table, and commenced to randomly wander the aisles of Duncan - the "buzzard" soaring and flapping his wings, and the "announcer" fish following behind, making screeching noises that were more appropriate for a crow or eagle, but, hell, who had ever heard a buzzard's call? After several minutes of this random motion and noise, including feints at several upper classmen, the Buzzard would zero in on a white belt, start "hovering" while the "announcer" fish increased the tempo and volume of his screeches, and then, as the noise hit a crescendo, would spit a huge mouthful of the most disgusting-looking material that could be assembled from that evening's meal, in a great imitation of projectile vomiting, onto the dinner plate of the "target". I believe that the first Buzzard was fish Krell, who was probably 6'3", skinny as a rail, including a long neck, and had a buzzard-beak nose. To show you how the Corps evolves, today's Standard contains a specific prohibition of The Flight of The Buzzard.

Standard policy at the table in Duncan was that no cadet got seconds on any food item until everyone at that table had had the opportunity for firsts. To guarantee that situation, fish were required to ask, "Has everyone had firsts on the <item> that would care for it, Sir?" That led to a final Duncan Doing that also got the attention of the entire hall. There was, and still is, a great rivalry between the Aggie Band and the rest of the Corps. Members of the latter organization were known "CTs", or "Corps Turds", and the former as "BQs", or "Band Queers", some said for good reason. The Band traditionally occupies Dorm 11, with overflow in Dorm 9. The standard alignment for water fights, which usually took place in the Spring, was the CTs against the BQs. But you just couldn't stand up at evening chow and announce a water fight - a fart-off was required. The one I still remember had a cadet standing up and yelling, "On a quiet spring evening can be heard the plaintive cry from Dorm 11, 'Has everyone had firsts on everyone else that would care for it?!!!'" That always emptied Duncan, and the water fight began.

John (Yankus) Yantis

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Embellishments by Mark (Twitch Mitchell)

Remember how all the units had large plaques hanging on the walls around the dining hall? I remember a lot of the Duncan food fights were started by one outfit's fish gathering in front of another outfit's unit logo and then they would start pointing and laughing at the logo on the wall. The first things to fly were the buckets of "sky".

In addition to buttering ears, i also remember buttering up some zip's highly shined senior boots! Now, that took a gentle hand.

Do you remember those ice cream bars Duncan used to serve on occasion, I think they were called "Babe Ruth bars". They were long, narrow, pointed, chocolate covered, ice cream bars on a stick, sprinkled with nuts (and did I mention "very cold"). I remember on football or dance weekends, many CT's would have their dates (or sisters) dining with them in Duncan hall. I remember once crawling under several tables headed to some zip's sweet young thang with a frozen Baby Ruth bar clenched in my teeth and then firmly pushing it up between her mini-skirted thighs! Of course, we never hurt anyone, just surprised them a little!

I was also remembering some of those corps wide water fights. Awesome! They were sometimes as organized as Pickett's charge at the battle of Gettysburg and sometimes just shear barbarian chaos. I do remember the water brigades would man the first floor heads and pass fully loaded trashcans of water out through the open windows to the combatants. I also remember TE had some reel-to-reel tapes of battle sounds...so awesome! Machine gun fire, the boom of artillery, dive bombing planes. The sound effects really added to the battle scene. I also recall, guys would climb up onto the dorm roofs and launch water balloons with surgical tubing sling shots into the attacking lines. And then others on the roof would light newspaper pages and let them drift down onto the battlefield...that really added a lot of visual stimuli along with the burning smell of smoke.

Or how about the time they crucified Jesus in the quad! It was right before Easter break and I remember hearing this...boom, boom, boom. It was the sound of a bass drum down in the quad area. I remember looking out the dorm window and seeing two guys...one guy in front beating a death march on his bass drum and a second guy wrapped in a sheet dragging a makeshift cross on his shoulders. A small crowd followed. Soon the procession stopped. The crowd gathered around the guy with the cross, then tied him securely to it. They then removed the cover to one of the sprinkler system valve holes, inserted the end of the cross into the hole and hoisted the cross up. All the while the drum beat...boom, boom, boom.....

Twitch